


falling through

by irreputablyyours



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 1990s, Cold War, Dissolution of the USSR, Introspection, M/M, or rather the tail end of it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 06:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24450067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irreputablyyours/pseuds/irreputablyyours
Summary: Maybe today, for just a few hours, he'll stop lying.
Relationships: America/Russia (Hetalia)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 52





	falling through

**Author's Note:**

> This could be considered a follow-up to 'rotting teeth', although it works on its own.

_‘And one more thing: the West, whom Russia fascinates but also fills with fear, is always ready to come to its aid, if only in the interests of its own peace. The West will refuse others, but it will always help Russia.’_

_-Imperium, Ryszard Kapuściński_

* * *

December 31st, 1991

* * *

Everything is falling apart, Ivan thinks. Absolutely everything.

He sits on a bench in the central square of Moscow, hands cold but not yet frozen, trembling around a cigarette. The flame went out hours ago. There is no warmth left. Soon, he will tramp on the ashes and head back home. Or rather, soon he will tramp on the ashes and head back to parliament, upon which his head will ache for days and he will spend hours feeling as though he has lost phantom limbs. 

For the past three hours he has been dreaming of a cup of tea, but acquiring said cup would require getting up, and if he got up he knew his feet would take him directly back to parliament - there was no other way he could make himself go. 

Right now, he would prefer freezing to going back. 

There is no Soviet flag hanging from the Kremlin, now. There never will be again. His flag is simply his, now. 

_Long live the creation of the will of the people…_

He needs another cigarette. He needs another bottle of vodka. 

He doesn’t need to look to know who it is, trampling through the frigid cold and torrid ice like it couldn’t hurt him if it tried. 

“Alfred,” he says. 

“Aw, Ivan, you remembered,” Alfred says, and when Ivan looks up he is - changed. He supposes that is to be expected; they have not spoken in six years. But in some strange part of Ivan’s mind, Alfred remains untouchable, unchangeable, that same bright, uncertain boy Ivan met centuries ago. 

“How could I forget,” he says, more to himself than anyone else. Alfred does not hear him. 

He does not ask Alfred what he is here for. He knows: Ivan has gloated more than many times in his life, although he is a bit less obvious than Alfred in that respect. 

He sits, watches his cigarette crumble just a bit more, lets the wind hit his burning cold fingers, and waits. 

“How’s Gorbachev? Yeltsin?” Alfred finally asks, and Ivan looks away.

He has no desire to do this. He and Alfred have played games for years now, and Ivan- 

Ivan is _tired._ Of politics, businessmen, capitalists, communists, revolutionaries. People. The world entirely. Some days mere existence seems like too heavy a burden to carry, to simply bear the weight of being _Russia,_ centuries of history and millions of people. He does not understand how Yao does it. 

Alfred is still so young: he takes responsibilities as though they are privileges. He won’t notice the thousands of kilos he’s been dragging along until he is too weak to carry them. 

“You like to pretend, don’t you.”

Alfred smiles. There are so many things he does not know, and yet still he wields his naivete like a weapon, like it is someone else’s job to make up for his mistakes (Russia has seen many people take the broom - England, Canada, Australia. He has no desire to be among them.) 

“Pretend what?” 

“That we get along.” 

And suddenly, like a baton smashing through glass, Alfred laughs. 

“Ivan,” He says, sounding as though he’s struggling to breathe (a few years ago, Ivan would’ve dreamed of choking him). 

Alfred meets his eyes, grinning rambunctiously. “Ivan, I have _never_ pretended to like you. I hated you from the moment we first met,” he says, proudly. 

Funny. Ivan remembers their first meeting quite differently. Alfred, shaky hands and nervous smiles, _thanks for, y’know, thinking I could win, nice to finally meet you._ He’d been different then: faster to smile and slower to show teeth.

...Ivan hadn’t liked him as much. 

“Alfred,” He states, and there must be something in his tone, something special, because Alfred turns to look at him, eyes like chips of ice, but for once Ivan looks at him and he thinks that Alfred might just _see,_ see what really is as opposed to what he wants to see. 

“Yeah?” He answers, just a bit too quiet. 

Ivan meets his eyes, takes him in - his windswept hair and easy smile, the way he never puts on an extra coat, how he's shivering slightly. Like this, he doesn’t look like a force of nature, an unstoppable conqueror of time and space. Like this, he looks like a man. 

Ivan thinks that he must, too. 

“What do you want?” 

Alfred flinches. There’s a long, heavy pause. When he speaks, his voice is quiet. 

“...I don’t know. Not anymore. That’s the problem.” 

Alfred looks down, and when he looks up again, he reminds Ivan of that nervous boy, two centuries back, teeming with joy at the idea of what the future held. 

“Today, I think I just wanted to see you.” 

Alfred leans back, pulls out a small wax-and-plastic cup, and passes it to Ivan. His bare fingers curl in the nape of his neck, and for the first time he two hundred years, he looks nervous. 

“You seemed kind of cold,” He offers by way of explanation, and pushes the cup over, not quite touching Ivan’s fingers. 

This time, he smiles.

Ivan’s country has teetered and disintegrated. People are protesting in the streets, demanding food, demanding democracy, demanding things he cannot provide (things he does not _know_ how to provide). And here is Alfred, his enemy of half a century, windswept in the snow, took a plane just to sit here and offer him a cup of (awful, McDonald’s) coffee. 

If Ivan were could keep snowglobes - moments, frozen in time forever, that he could pick up and relive whenever he liked, whenever the future struck him uncertain - 

this would be one of them.

**Author's Note:**

> [Imperium](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperium_\(Kapu%C5%9Bci%C5%84ski_book\)): Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuściński’s travel accounts of his time spent in the USSR. The quote at the beginning inspired this fic. I would highly recommend the book to anyone interested in the USSR and its modern-day republics. 
> 
> [Dissolution of the USSR](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Union): The USSR was formally dissolved on the 25th of December 1991, when USSR secretary-general Mikhail Gorbachev handed over control of the Kremlin to Russian President Boris Yeltsin. That night, the Soviet flag was brought down for the final time, and since then the Russian flag has flown over Moscow.
> 
> USSR National Anthem: “Long live the creation of the will of the people…” is a lyric from the 1977 version. 
> 
> McDonald’s: The USSR opened its first McDonald's in 1991. The line to get in was [enormous](https://www.boredpanda.com/first-mcdonald-restaurant-opens-soviet-union-moscow-russia-1990/?utm_source=duckduckgo&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=organic).
> 
> First meeting: Russia was officially neutral during America's war of independence, but generally supported the United States. Diplomatic contact between the two nations was officially established in [1809](https://www.prlib.ru/en/history/619690), although there had, in reality, been contact between the two nations since the 1790s.


End file.
